---
title: Observability
---

import AlphaCallout from '/snippets/alpha-lg-callout.mdx';
import observability from '/snippets/oss/observability.mdx';

<AlphaCallout />

Traces are a series of steps that your application takes to go from input to output. Each of these individual steps is represented by a run. You can use [LangSmith](https://smith.langchain.com/) to visualize these execution steps. To use it, [enable tracing for your application](/langsmith/trace-with-langgraph). This enables you to do the following:

* [Debug a locally running application](/langgraph-platform/clone-traces-studio).
* [Evaluate the application performance](/oss/langchain/evals).
* [Monitor the application](/langsmith/dashboards).

## Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have the following:

* A [LangSmith account](https://smith.langchain.com/) (free to sign up)

## Enable tracing

To enable tracing for your application, set the following environment variables:

```python
export LANGSMITH_TRACING=true
export LANGSMITH_API_KEY=<your-api-key>
```

By default, the trace will be logged to the project with the name `default`. To configure a custom project name, see [Log to a project](#log-to-a-project).

For more information, see [Trace with LangGraph](langsmith/trace-with-langgraph).

<observability />
